A Teacher Tells it Like it is

Natalie Munroe was suspended from her job in the middle-class Central Bucks School District for her profanity-laced blog, which has since been taken down.

In it, the 30-year-old teacher called her students “disengaged, lazy whiners” and complained that they are “just generally annoying” and “disobedient, disrespectful oafs.”

Online comments applaud her for taking a tough love approach or excoriate her for verbal abuse. She’s attracted media attention, and backers have started a Facebook group.

Munroe did not use her full name or identify her students or school. A school official did not return a message Tuesday.

If the lady didn’t use her full name or identify her students or school, it seems like she is being denied her first amendment rights. It sounds as though some folks out her way are being either thin skinned or paranoid.

Many students are lazy, whine, cheat and think they should get good grades for doing not much at all. Perhaps they need to read how they are perceived. Their bosses will find the same thing their teachers are currently looking at.

I am not sure why she admitted to the blog being hers. Something is missing in this story. I am not sure how I feel about this story. Meanwhile, if no names were given, what is the harm? Contributors? Is this teacher out of line?

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25 Thoughts to “A Teacher Tells it Like it is”

Teachers have 1st Amendment rights. She used hers. She apparently did not identify anyone and spoke in general terms. If I discovered that my daughter’s teacher had done this, I would request a conference and determine her opinion of MY child. If she has that opinion of my child, I would determine the validity and act accordingly.

While I agree that she does have 1A rights, does her school district have a written policy about such blogs? Do they have restrictions about what teachers place on facebook? Do they require facebook for teachers to be private? Do they stipulate that a teacher can NEVER, EVER friend a student? Such policies do exist in Manassas City, PWC, etc. My mother teaches in southern VA and each teacher was given a written policy that states if you ever friend a student on your facebook you WILL be fired. If you do not put your facebook on private and a student or parent finds unsavory items pertaining to you, you WILL be fired, etc. In Manassas city, the teachers have been encouraged to place their facebook status on private and are prohibited from friending their students.

And apparently this goes both ways. My daughter’s friend placed a profanity laced diatribe against one of her teachers (and named the teacher *sigh*). The feed was printed by another student and given to the teacher. My daughter’s friend received 3 days out of school suspension and was kicked out of the class and received an F for the grading period.

BTW, the writer does say later in her post, “(For the record, my computer froze and had to be shut down at work; when I rebooted, I didn’t bother signing back on to finish this as other things to do came up. At present, then, I’m not being a renegade at all, as I’m writing this at my kitchen table.)” But the fact is, she started the post at school. If the content were of a different nature, she might have received a slap on the hand. Since the post was about work, though…eeeshk.

A teacher blogging at work. Wonderful. Want to bet she NEVER notices a thing when a child complains of being bullied in class? When one of my kids was being bullied at Metz I asked, “What was the teacher doing at that time?” Wanna guess what my kid’s response was?

Reading her interpretation made me feel bad for her. Just having this much harsh light shone on a blog meant for a few friends. And being judged by the most damning post, without any of the rest of it being publicized to give her more dimension. I do think she used really bad judgment to vent in a blog about her students, (and to do it at work, for however brief a time, and state as much.) But she’s paying for it in a huge way that doesn’t feel justified to me. But she’s still blogging, and now she has a much bigger audience, so maybe she’s enjoying it in some way. And probably as many people will admire her as condemn her. I just think she did a dumb thing.

She blew it when she used school property. That allows the school to intervene. She did use poor judgement. So do people that send dirty jokes from work or look at porn on their boss’s time. Most companies and institutions have acceptable use policy for their communication devices.

I don’t disagree with her in spirit. It sounds like she had some real spoiled brats. If she wants to blog about it, she needs to think up a moniker and keep all names and places out. Then she can blog to her hearts content and bitch about all the little jerks she has to put up with.

The reason that the teacher was discovered as owner of the blog is that she included her picture, which was eventually recognized by someone in the school community. And if I remember correctly, her lawyer claims that the school had no Internet policy, so there were no written guidelines that prohibited blogging at work.

Kelly, you just blew another hole in my argument. I can’t imagine a high school not having an internet policy. I don’t know if I would declare her clear if there was no internet policy. I still think if you are using school equipment, they ultimately become the arbiter of what’s appropriate and what is not.

Its a dicey problem. She has gotten enough attention that she will probably get her job back.

Moon-howler :marin will you please repost the information. I have seen a lot of her on the news also.

Sorry, I meant to say that with the information posted on THIS blog I side with her 1A right.

It’s been reported that she used her school computer to make some blog entries BUT that her school division doesn’t have an internet acceptable use policy. I think that on the whole she’s free to express her concerns, criticisms and ideas however her employer should have the right to hire and fire her at will.

I think what people are getting wrapped around the axle over is that Little Johnny and Susie Q Public may not be ‘winners’ and wade in the shallow end of the academic pool.

Now, if my kid was in her class I’d like to confront her and see what she thinks about my kid. An honest no BS assessment. If it was a valid critique…take action to fix the problem and say thank you. If it wasn’t, I’d pull my kid and would do what it took to get her off the payroll.

No one has complete 1A rights at work. In a previous job, you were not allowed to wear items that carried any sort of message. Anyone here a Fed? You’re bound by the Hatch Act. Using your employer’s bandwidth? Probably not the place to make disparaging comments about your clients ( or students) in this case.

I caught one of my college kids downloading free music from the internet. “But it’s my computer!” was the rationale. That may have been true, but I’m the one paying for the DSL, and I get to make up the rules as I go along.

If the school has no Internet policy (which is stupid), I don’t think they really have a leg to stand on except that the state might be a right to work state.

I took most of the teacher’s comments as jokes in poor taste. I doubt she would ever say those things to a student. Now if she has had poor reviews in the past, that’s another thing all together.

I can see why her students would be upset, though. Even if the comments were meant as a joke and were generalized, students would wonder, “Is she talking about me?” And what about the student who posted that he had anxiety and asked that she try to understand shy kids? At the very least, the teacher’s post was insensitive.

That said, ever read RateMyProfessor.com? You should see the students’ comments. Plus, those students are allowed to name the school and the teacher. Some teachers have fought back and posted replies that are worse than what this teacher posted on her personal blog.

Teachers have had it with this kind of thing. Unfortunately, all it does is create an atmosphere of disrespect.

If the NLRB says you can put down your employer and your fellow employees on a website than could you not do the same with customers? In this case students/parents.

I wonder how that ruling will play into this case – if it goes to court.

Mind you I think what everyone here is saying is that we all think that the teacher has 1A rights to say what she wants (as long as it’s not in her classroom to the students, right?) but that her employer should be able to terminate her if they feel that her activities outside of work are taking away from her ability to maintain discipline and provide a minimal learning environment in her classroom.

I love the non-PC’ness of this whole issue as it’s forcing people to confront an issue they may not be comfortable with — maybe thier kids aren’t little precious gems…

Other than using poor judgement, I am on this teacher’s side. I agree with Emma about who owns the bandwidth.

She should have used her own equipment and made up a moniker. I don’t think she was wrong about the students and I would bet my next paycheck that the disrespect was there before she was. Kids with a sense of entitlement are often rude, crude, and socially unattractive.

There are plenty of ways for parents and students to complain or compliment schools and teachers: rate my teacher, school matters, and great schools are 3 internet venues where parents and students can discuss their issues with schools, the administration, and sometimes specific teachers are named. On rate my teacher, the teachers are specifically named, though the posters can remain anonymous. Are there internet venues for teachers to rate their students, or the parents of these students? Nope.